In the manufacture of Baby Fresh premoistened wipes, a stack of towelettes, or tissues is inserted into a flanged container prior to directing the container to a liquid impregnating system of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,189,896, issued to Kolbach et al, at which the desired liquid is introduced into the stack of towelettes. After the impregnating operation a moisture-impervious foil seal is adhered to the top surface of the peripheral flange of the container, and thereafter, a hinged lid is connected to the container to complete the package. The overall package design is described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,904,074, and is herein incorporated by reference. Also, to the extent necessary to completely understand this invention, the above-referenced '896 patent also is incorporated by reference.
One type of apparatus that has been successfully employed to heat seal the foil sheet over the top surface of the container is a Colunio model 12000 heat sealing system. This device is sold by Caleb Duckworth Ltd., Manton Lane, Bedford England. Prior to the instant invention, the containers of impregnated product, after leaving the impregnating system disclosed in the '896 patent, were manually positioned into apertures of a conveyor system associated with the Colunio heat sealing device. The apertures were dimensioned to closely circumscribe the container adjacent the upper periphery of the body so that the outwardly directed flanges of the container would seat on the upper surface of the conveyor. With the flange so supported, a heat sealing press was employed to bond the foil sheet to the upper surface thereof.
As should be apparent, the manual loading of containers into apertures of the Colunio conveyor is inherently an extremely inefficient, slow operation.
The following patents directed to article conveying systems were considered in the preparation of this application; however, none of these systems are believed to provide any significant teachings with respect to the automatic feeding of flanged containers into apertures of a conveyor, as is contemplated by the present invention:
U.S. Pat. No. 1,726,054: Burns PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,889,846: Wright PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 2,193,942: Shackelford PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,228,901: Watzka et al.
The system disclosed in the Watzka et al. patent employs a gravity conveying system in the form of an inclined path 1 for directing articles 4 onto a pivot plate 7. This plate can then be moved to a lower plane to position the articles onto a take-away conveyor. This patent does not relate, in any way, to the gravity feeding of flanged containers into apertures of a conveyor.